Samsung Galaxy S10/S10+ vs. Galaxy S9/S9+: Worth the Upgrade?

The new Samsung Galaxy S10 is faster and more powerful than last year's Galaxy S9. But is it a big enough improvement to upgrade? Well that depends how much you want to spend...

2019's tech season is opened and Android device makers are hitting strong. Samsung just announced its new Galaxy S10, along with its bigger sibling, the Galaxy S10+, and the scaled-back Galaxy S10e and the Galaxy S105G which is supposedly the most powerful of the lot in their arsenal.

As you'd expect, this latest generation is a step up in specs and power from last year's models, the Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+. We'll have to wait to get the phones in for testing before we can truly tell you which one is the better buy, and while we may not get a review unit, for now we can take a look at everything that's been upgraded to help determine if it's worth the upgrade.

Processor

Samsung's using the latest in Qualcomm like they did with the Galaxy S9. It gave the Galaxy S9 the fastest-at-the-time Snapdragon 845 processor. The newest high-end Snapdragon is the Qualcomm 855, which you'll find in the Galaxy S10. Exactly how much faster the eight-core, 2.8GHz processor in the Galaxy S10 is remains to be seen, but our friends at PC MAG US benchmarked a Snapdragon 855 reference unit last month and it showed pretty significant jumps in performance over every Snapdragon 845 phone we compared it with.

(Left to right: Samsung Galaxy S10e, Galaxy S10, Galaxy S10+)

Display

The Galaxy S10 and S10+ both use curved Dynamic AMOLED screens, new versions of the Galaxy phones' AMOLED panels that are certified to display HDR10+ content. According to Samsung, the new screens offer even wider colors and brighter whites than the Super AMOLED screens of previous Galaxy phones, it's a bold claim but we'll need to test this to be sure.

We've recently started in-depth phone screen testing and haven't taken a close look at the Galaxy S9's performance, but the Galaxy Note 9 produces remarkably wide colors but isn't particularly bright, with a peak brightness just over half that of the iPhone XR.

As for resolution, Samsung is sticking with Quad HD+, with 2,960 by 1,440 pixels on the 6.1-inch S10 and 6.4-inch S10+. This means the screens will be extremely crisp, as we've come to expect from Samsung, but they won't be sharper or have more pixels per inch than their predecessors.

Connectivity

The standard Galaxy S10 and S10+ phones get bumps in connectivity, with LTE Cat. 20 compared with the Galaxy S9's LTE Cat.18, and dual-band 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/ax Wi-Fi with enhanced 4x4 MIMO. The new 802.11ax Wi-Fi standard is faster than 802.11ac, with a peak speed of 4.8Gbps. More importantly, it can navigate more crowded airwaves, with a host of channel selection and allocation features that Qualcomm says provides four times the capacity of previous Wi-Fi versions.If you're interested in getting an early jump on 5G, you won't want to pick up a Galaxy S10 or S10+, as a specific Galaxy S10 5G model is planned for later this year.

The S10 5G (pictured below) will be largely identical to the standard S10 in features, but pricing and availability for the phone haven't been confirmed. It's also worth noting that Etisalat and Du have been working on 5G infrastructure for some time now and we fully expect both carriers to make announcements for it.

Camera

Instead of the "simple" dual 12MP rear cameras on the S9 and S9+, the S10 and S10+ feature triple rear-facing cameras: separate 12MP sensors for telephoto and wide angle (f/2.4 for the zoom lens and a very bright f/1.5 for the wide angle), and a 123-degree, 16MP ultra-wide camera on top of that at f/2.2. The cameras feature Samsung's dual optical image stablization (dual OIS) to help reduce blur. The front-facing camera has also been upgraded to 10MP from 8MP, with a dual pixel sensor and f/1.9 lens. The S10+ goes further, with a separate 8MP RGB depth sensor.

Storage

The S10 and S10+ jump ahead of their predecessors in both memory and flash storage. Both phones feature 8GB of RAM, up from 4GB for the Galaxy S9 and 6GB for the S9+. The S10+ will even have a version with a whopping 12GB of RAM. The newer phones also double the minimum storage capacity with the base models featuring 128GB, along with 512GB versions of both phones and a 1TB version of the S10+. MicroSD card slots let you expand storage further, with support for cards up to 512GB, while the S9 and S9+ can only handle cards up to 400GB.

Size and Design

Don't expect the new Galaxy phones to look wildly different. Curved glass edges remain Samsung's preferred style, both for the screen and the back. The S10+ features an intriguing new option, however: ceramic. Both phones will be available in black, blue, pink, and white for glass backs, but the larger model will also have ceramic black and ceramic white variants.

Both phones will be nearly identical in size to their precedessors, though a hair thinner. They're about 0.2 ounces lighter, though, with the S10 weighing 5.5 ounces and the S10+ weighing 6.2 ounces. The ceramic version of the S10+ tips the scales at an even 7.0 ounces, however, making it heavier than the S9+.

(Left to right: Samsung Galaxy S9, Galaxy S9+)

Battery

The S10 features a 3,400mAh battery while the S10+ has a 4,100mAh battery, fairly large jumps in capacity over the previous 3,00mAh and 3,500mAh batteries. What this means for battery life, however, remains to be seen; we'll have to test both phones to see whether the new processor and screen actually need the extra juice, or if the phones can last even longer than their previous versions.

More interestingly, the S10 and S10+ feature Wireless PowerShare, a Qi charging technology that lets you charge other Qi-compatible devices with your phone. You won't only be able to charge your phone itself by resting it on a charger, but also be able to top off your other gadgets by resting them on the back of your phone.

Should You Upgrade?

The important question is if you should upgrade. Well at first look, the Samsung Galaxy S10 and S10+ appear to be pretty significant jumps over the S9 and S9+. But if you've gotten a Samsung S8, or S7 still, this is probably the upgrade you definitely need to get.

The processors are markedly faster (based on the reference benchmark tests we've performed), they have more RAM and storage space, their cameras are more advanced, and their Wi-Fi and cellular radios are loaded with new tricks. They won't be 5G-ready themselves, but a Galaxy S10 5G looming on the horizon will attract early adopters. These new Galaxy phones look like promising upgrades. The team at PC Mag US will definitely have a review coming in so we'll be sure to share those details.

About the Author

Kevin Sebastian is a passionate writer who lives and breathes on the internet. He started out as a Reddit lurker and eventually made his way to editorial. His curiosity for the region's burgeoning tech scene lead him to editorial positions in various tech publications managing content in technology and gaming. While Kevin is not writing or ranting about the gaming or tech industry, you can find him in far off deserts trying to practice his astrophotography, or in the city making documentaries. See Full Bio